


Over Shoulder

by pocketmouse



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Gen, Weeping Angels - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You keep looking, even though you shouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over Shoulder

Obviously it's too little, too late. But once the stone-cold hand of an angel touches your shoulder and an eyeblink finds you standing in a dark alley that smells more of horses than petrol, high laughter skittering off the brick, you can't help but take a second, third, fourth glance at every statue you see.

And New York has a lot of statues.

The Angels have had their fun, they've fed, they've gotten their revenge, whatever you want to call it. You're stuck here. No miracles this time. And it's not a bad life, when you come right down to it. It's not the one you'd planned, but Amy's here, so it can't be bad as all that. But you can't help looking over your shoulder.

So you grow up — really and properly, family and grey hairs and wrinkles, crows' feet and laugh lines, aching joints and stiffness in the bones. Your knees creak and pop going up the stairs, and Amy laughs and says you must be making up for not aging the last time 'round. You reply that you're just glad you're not losing your hair, but really you're wondering if mum had arthritis because dad only had it in his knees, and he always called it a hot kind of pain. This is cold, creeping inside your bones, and you don't ever feel warm these days.

You're always hungry, but food doesn't help — doesn't taste right, or like much at all, when you can convince yourself to eat it. Amy puts you to bed, though you insist you're not sick, just tired, but you can't meet her eyes. She's still as strong and active as when she was nineteen, running up and down the stairs two at a time, sometimes you don't know why she indulges you like this — but you need her, and you honestly don't know how to live without her.

It's hard to open your eyes in the morning. They feel like sandpaper as the sunlight hits them and you hide again. Getting old _sucks_ — it shouldn't be like this. All you want is a little more time. The irony of the thought doesn't escape you, and you drag your hands over your eyes as you try to ignore the way your stomach twists a little at the thought.

Maybe it's hunger. That'd be a nice change.

There's someone calling you, but from far away. Maybe it's Amy — you can't tell, it's distorted, like you're underwater, or very far away. It doesn't matter. When you finally open your eyes, you're hungry. Really properly hungry for the first time in what seems like forever. You stumble out of bed, looking for food, or Amy, or both.

No one's there. Not 'stepped out for a minute' not there — there's drawer only halfway closed on the dresser, a chair's knocked over, toiletries gone, the front door ajar. Amy's _gone_.

You panic — it's what you're best at. You rush outside — too many people, god, what were you thinking, you must look a mess, frightened old man, who let him out of the house. You wait for them to go by before moving on, looking for Amy.

Where'd she go? Did she think you were dead? Should've called Anthony. Should've called — somebody. Should've had more time.

It takes what feels like ages, to get by through all the people, to find it again, but it's the only place you can think to look. Your joints roll smoothly again, hope and need fuelling you beyond your fragile limits, you just need to find Amy again, just Amy, she's all you've needed for so long — you crest the hill and there she is. God, she still looks like she did when you were both young and reckless. She's standing with a few others amongst the crowded stones, a man and a woman and — oh.

She's talking to you. That's you down there. Young and stupid and in the shadow of a big blue box.

Oh no.

You duck behind an obelisk, bury your face in your hands, try to think. But you can't. That's _you_ down there, how can it be you, that doesn't make any sense. Are you dead? No, you can't be dead, it doesn't feel like any of the other times. And really, after everything, you find it hard to believe in ghosts. And you can't walk through things. Maybe it's a hallucination. Or a trick.

Making your way down the hillside takes no time at all. There they are, the Doctor and River and that tempting blue box and _Amy_ and yourself — something has caught his younger duplicate's eye, he's kneeling, no, don't read it, don't make it true _no_ — you reach out to stop him but the moment your hand touches his shoulder he disappears

and suddenly you're not hungry any more.

Oh.

The fog clears a little from your brain, and a tiny part of you has to laugh, because the words on the stone are wrong. After all, you're not dead, are you? It's not a very funny joke, though. Amy is railing at you, in fact — screaming, begging, anger and fear in her eyes like you've not seen in a long time. You remember the night she found you in an alley, sobbing her eyes out and wrapping her arms around you like she'd never let you go again, and it's not hard to draw on that as she turns all eyes to her — always so good at that — and just a touch to her back, right over her heart, and at least some version of you is happy again somewhere.

God, you really could weep.

  


Anthony's not really sure where the statue came from — he didn't order it, and he knows mum didn't. She and dad had never seemed fond of angels — mum always looking away, dad giving them an awful side-eye. He knows neither of them would have asked for something like this. But it's a public cemetery, and you can't really go about asking to have things that might be someone's grave marker moved, can you? Even if it's on someone else's plot.

Then the second one appears. The old one is gone, but this one looks like two angels, arms clasped and their heads bent together, forehead to forehead. It looks a little awkward, but it must be from someone who knew mum and dad — it only appeared after mum went, too, and they used to stand like that sometimes. Never much for sitting down, either of them, except when dad was sick at the end.

So he doesn't say anything to anyone about the angels, but he tries to avoid looking at it when he comes to visit.

**Author's Note:**

> Usually everything I write is my own personal headcanon about what happened. This isn't, but I couldn't get the idea out of my head, either. And then I couldn't manage to actually make Rory be alone for all of eternity.


End file.
